This week’s Sunday Stills color challenge theme is ‘Tan, beige, and/or peachy shades.’ See more responses here. Captions on the photos.
Life’s a beach, or is it?
Tag Archives: Waikoloa
Waikoloa Solar and Storage Project
This photo looks a bit like a patch of land scarred by a brush fire, but it’s actually the Big Island’s largest solar power project, which began operations earlier this year. Situated just above Waikoloa Village, it occupies 300 acres and is expect to provide around 7% of the island’s energy needs.
Waikoloa is a good location for this because it’s dry and sunny. It is, however, also known as Waikoblowa because the winds are strong and the dry dirt flies, so they’ll have to keep those solar panels clean!
For more information about the Waikoloa Solar and Storage Project, go to https://www.aes-hawaii.com/waikoloa-solar-storage-project.
A bevy of bridges
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Bridges.’ See more responses here.
The top image is an elegant bridge on the coast, in the Hilton Resort at Waikoloa. It spans an inlet from the ocean into a lagoon. This bridge is part of the coast path, which is open for anyone to walk.
The Big Island’s main use of bridges is to span the numerous gullies that run from the mountains down to the ocean. On the east side, some of these bridges are quite long and high, with vertigo-inducing views over the edge. These three bridges cross gullies in North Kohala on the winding road from Kapaau to Pololu. The third has several houses nearby, so a walkway has been added. This is surely safer than walking on the road, though not by much judging from its appearance!
Finally, bridges of a different kind. Anoles and geckos use lines, attached to the house, to get around. Sometimes these one-lane bridges lead to encounters with fellow travelers. In this case the smaller anole leapt off into the cane grass, but that was its intended destination anyway. In the second photo, this anole was using the washing line to bridge the space from the house to a hedge.
An odd look
A photo of part of the Hilton Resort at Waikoloa where the block of hotel rooms contrasts with the thatched roofs of poolside buildings. I thought this an odd juxtaposition.
Posted in response to this month’s Becky’s Squares challenge theme of ‘Odd.’ See more responses here.
Sign of a brush fire
This is an early morning view of smoke from a brush fire burning south of Waimea. The fire started on Friday morning and high winds, up to 40 mph, caused it to grow rapidly. On Saturday, 8,000 acres were reported burned by noon and 12,000 acres at 5 pm. Sunday morning, at 11 am, that figure had jumped to 36,000 acres and by 1:30 pm was around 40,000 acres.
The fire jumped Highway 190 on Sunday afternoon, prompting an evacuation order for Waikoloa Village, a community with more than 6,000 residents. This order was later lifted as conditions changed and the immediate threat to the community eased.
As of Monday evening, the fire, while not fully contained, had at least been brought somewhat under control and its surge stopped, though a renewal of high winds could easily change all that.
Posted for Bushboy’s Last on the Card photo challenge. See more responses here.
ʻAnaehoʻomalu Bay beach
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Beautiful Beaches.’ See more offerings here.
ʻAnaehoʻomalu Bay, at Waikoloa Resort, is often referred to as A Bay for reasons that aren’t hard to figure out. In normal times this is a very popular spot. The beach is a long curve of pale sand with palms at either end. It’s popular with sunbathers, swimmers and snorkelers. There’s also a restaurant and bar at one end of the beach, facilities nearby, and shops not far away. And Ocean Sports operates various cruises out of the bay on a catamaran or glass-bottomed boat.
There’s a hike I like to do, which goes south from A Bay, and on previous visits I’ve skirted the crowds which are usually found there. However, these are not normal times. On my last visit I headed north. There was one person in the water, two on the beach. The ocean lapped gently against the shore. An offshore breeze rustled the palm fronds. Usually when I hike places like this, I’m an aberration with shoes and a fanny pack, marching through swathes of bikinis and board shorts and roasting flesh. On this occasion, I was an aberration just by being there.
Christmas lights
Seasons greetings to all. I’ve swung by the Hilton at Waikoloa a couple of times in the early morning to see the collection of lights creating a festive display. Fronting the display is a large sleigh being pulled by a quartet of little deer (they’re not gonna make it down the block let alone around the world). But what makes it stand out is that the trees on the roundabout behind the sleigh, and all the way up the drive to the hotel, are wrapped with lights. It looks like a candy cane forest.
I used a tripod for the top and bottom shots, but for some the camera was handheld. Most of the shots were shaky, but I liked the one in the middle, in part because it caught a barrier rising making it look like a large red fan.
Graham's Island 